Under the Cover of Light by Carole Engle Avriett

Author:Carole Engle Avriett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, RELIGION / Christian Life / Inspirational
ISBN: 9781496421609
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2017-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

During the time following Jerry’s arrival back at Vegas, it soon became apparent why the North Vietnamese had remodeled this part of Hoa Lo Prison—to accommodate a burgeoning prisoner population. It was one of Jerry’s current roommates who had come up with the name “Little Vegas,” usually shortened to just “Vegas,” and the name had stuck. He had done his pilot training at Nellis AFB just outside Las Vegas. As time went along, other POWs called separate areas within this sprawling part of the Hanoi Hilton by names of casinos on the Strip—Stardust, Desert Inn, Thunderbird, Riviera, Golden Nugget, the Mint.

During remodeling of new areas, the Vietnamese had taken extraordinary measures to stymie communication among increasing numbers of inmates. No two cells faced each other, and spaces between walls separated cellblocks. Windows contained additional slats, and any opening was covered over with bamboo mats.

Yet Vegas’s labyrinth design and Vietnamese attempts to hinder prisoners’ ability to communicate with one another only heightened the creativity of men determined to stay connected. Some POWs discovered metal drinking cups pressed against vertical surfaces amplified mere whispers enough to be heard through walls, even ones with narrow corridors between. In Jerry’s cell, the men discovered tapping on the floor worked best for their cell. One POW noted that after lunch, when guards often napped and so much tapping commenced, it “sounded like a cabinet factory.”

Tapping, however, was not the only means of communicating. Sometimes men wrote notes on tiny pieces of toilet paper using a pencil fashioned from bits of coal. If intercepted, these notes could bring severe punishment, so they were often passed by sticking them in a crevice in the wall or some other hiding place around the area where toilet buckets were emptied. Guards made an effort not to go too close because of the stench. As a result, this often was the safest method to communicate.

But there were other ways messages could be sent. Footsteps could be timed in such a way as to “pat out” a signal. Chests could be slapped, clothes thumped, brooms swept, plates banged—anything that could exhibit a visual signal or produce a noise had potential for sending a message. Howard “Howie” E. Rutledge, shot down on November 28, 1965—not long after Jerry—summarized the process succinctly and simply: “During those long years of captivity, we learned to communicate with anything and everything.”

It was always perilous to stay connected, but it was always done.

A primary goal for POWs during the middle years of incarceration—a crucial reason to stay connected—involved tracking who had been captured and when. Jerry used a simple method of memorizing prisoners’ names alphabetically using his knuckles. A man whose name began with A was on the top of his first knuckle, then the next name in alphabetical order was in the “valley,” or space between the knuckles. The next name, again in the alphabetical order, sat on top of the next knuckle, then the next name down in the valley. He memorized hundreds of names

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